53 Ways to Act Like a Professional Editor
In order to establish and grow a career, building long-term working relationships with collaborators and production companies is essential.
So how do you ensure that people enjoy working with you, value your input, and want to book you for future work? Simple, you need to be, and act on a daily basis, like a professional.
What’s not so simple is knowing what separates the professional from the amateur, and what you should be doing, in often challenging circumstances, in order to consistently act like a professional.
So to help you with that, I’ve taken what I’ve learned from nearly 20 years working in Post-Production, thinking about colleagues I’ve worked with over the years, talking to other Editors, as well as Producers and Directors, collating what I see film students in my teaching work fail to do, and put it all together into this, the eBook that will teach you how to be a Professional, rather than an Amateur.
The more of these 53 things you’re doing, the better your work will be, the more people will want to hire you, and the more opportunities that will open up for you. That’s a promise.
Want a taster before you purchase? Here are 5 sample tips from the book.
#10 EXPERIMENT – Editing should be an experiment. No edit ends up exactly the way people expect. Take multiple different approaches to the same material, put that music cue in the place you don’t think it will work, or remove that shot or line of dialogue you think you can’t do without.
#24 VOICE YOUR OPINION – Directors want you to have an opinion and voice it. They haven’t just hired you to push buttons, they want you to come in fresh, they want you to see things through the eyes of the audience, and they want you to transform the material into a working film.
#35 DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD – Editing can be stressful, but losing your temper doesn’t help anyone. Keeping a calm head even if others lose theirs is the kind of thing which gets noted and remembered by colleagues.
#43 BE BOLD – There are a lot of creative, talented people out there. How will you stand out? You need to make bold choices, try difficult things, and show that amongst all the professionals out there, you’re one of those who can bring something different and exciting to the mix.
#50 DISCUSS GROUND RULES – A major pain point in any relationship is clashing expectations. Is the Director an early riser or late starter? Do they want to be in all day, or leave you in peace? Discussions early on avoid the friction of people not getting what they were expecting.
Free Mini eBook
We’re also offering a free two-page PDF in exchange for signing up to our mailing list.
This breaks down 6 Key Concepts That Will Make You a Better Editor. These are six things to think about while you’re editing or reviewing your work, which will help you to engage your audience and create more interesting and more effective scenes, and films.
Maybe you’re familiar with some of them, maybe they’re all new to you, or maybe you know all of them and get to be smug about it. Either way, it’s a win-win!